Then he fell silent for a spell, as though mentally calculating the extent of such a calamity on their fortunes.
CHAPTER XVII
Perk Shows His Hand
“Let me tell yeou, partner, that same bar he’s some stickin’-plaster all right!”
A full half hour must have passed without any noticeable change in the conditions. The obstinate beast stayed close to the foot of the tree, never making any attempt at climbing the same; just as though he might be well aware of his own shortcomings.
A number of times, when one of the prisoners among the branches chanced to make some sort of movement, in order to relieve the numbness that had gripped his legs, the bear would exhibit the same ferocity he had shown all through the siege.
“The old chap certainly must have a long debt to pay toward somebody, and is taking it out on us, Perk,” ventured Jack, breaking the silence once more.
“But it doant seem so much like a joke as at first,” grumbled Perk, disconsolately. “What in thunder’d we do if he camped aout on us, mebbe fur a hull day’nd night—gorry! wouldn’t we be in a pickle, though—nawthin’ to eat’r drink it might be, an’ so sore in aour bodies we’d feel like howlin’.”
“Oh! let’s hope it doesn’t turn out so serious as all that,” Jack soothed him somewhat by saying confidently. “What bothers me most is how we’re going to do any sort of business, with that chap hanging out in this neighborhood, and likely to drop in on us any old minute.”
“Drat the luck, any way!” growled the greatly annoyed Perk, aghast at the very idea of slow starvation; with that fat old husky camped at the foot of their tree refuge, daring them to set a foot on the ground.
The morning was wearing away by degrees, with the sun already peeping down into the deep ravine, from its more lofty position in the heavens. Perk was now busily engaged cudgeling his brains in the endeavor to conjure up some species of scheme by which they might have a chance to rid themselves of their four-footed jailor.